Hi all, Need some suggestions and ideas for cooking .We are pure vegetarians from Karnataka. Came to US 4 months ago and recently married .Till now dint face much problem in cooking as my husbands office was very nearby . Used to wake up by 7.30 finish preparing the breakfast by 9 . He used to take the same thing for lunch . Last week My hubby got transferred to new location now which takes an hour approximately from our location and hence he leaves by 6.30 am. So need some suggestions as I am not used to waking up so early daily (5 am) and cook breakfast as I get headache if i wake up too early since once I wake up I won’t get sleep later like in afternoon. I suggested my husband to eat flakes or oats but he is like daily it’s not possible to eat and flakes aren’t so healthy as they have some added sugars in it . So planning to cook the previous night . Looking for some healthy and simple items for morning breakfast and lunch box which stays for long time and both of us are planning to lose weight as well. Earlier used to cook simple items like poha , Upma, semiya on weekdays .But now worried whether will it be good if I cook the previous day . I am also new to cooking but trying different stuffs nowadays .Please help !!
We have three master chefs specializing in vegetarian (Karnataka ) cooking. @GeetaKashyap @Archanaanchan @nandinimithun . I am sure they have good suggestions. I normally cook in the evening / night after work and put it in boxes and refrigerate for lunch the next day. Upma, vermicelli are all good in the fridge for two days . If I know I have a busy week coming up I cook over the weekend and again store the food in the freezer in small boxes for the week. Idli’s freeze really well, so does chutney and sambhar .
You can cook dinner in large quantity and can pack and keep it in the fridge for next day's lunch.... These items can be quicker for Breakfast - 1. Idly (you can prepare and keep the chutney a day before, and can keep some chutney podis) 2. Sandwich with some ready made sandwich chutney / or this chutney also you can prepare and store it in the fridge 3. Bread toast with butter / jam 4. Bread omlette 5. Croissants with butter
Op, I always like cooking food fresh . I mostly don't freeze/refrigerate any food. What I usually do for breakfast is keep the ready mix/dosa batter .You may try the following for your breakfast : 1. Ready mix Upittu( I have the recipe in my media section ) . You just have to boil measured water and add this mix. you can substitute rava with broken wheat , rice rave. 2. Ready Gojjavalakki mix ( Mix hot water and some coconut grating ) 3. Keep dosa batter ready 4. Pesrattu dose ( soak green gram overnight ) Grind this along with green chilli, cumin, raw onion, ginger and salt . Make instant dosa. 5. Paper Avalakki oggarane . Heat some tablespoons of oil add mustard cumin urad dal green chilli curry leaves add the thin poha sprinkle some water add salt and sugar . Add coconut gratings if required. 6. Make rave dose batter over night and keep. 7. Neer dose - You can make it with millets of your choice or rice . 8. Ragi dose or Ragi idli 9. Avlakki dose , Plantain dose 10. oats dose , besan cheela 11. Rotti is my favourite .I can make it within 15 mins. You can practice and try to make quick 2 akki /ragi/rave rotti . -For noon you can try one pot meal. Spinach rice , puliyogre , Lemon rice , vegetable rice , khichdi, badnekai anna, tomato rice ( Replace rice with millets some days). -Make rice and sambar in the night if you are not comfortable making it in the morning. Morning just boil the sambar again and mix with rice and pack lunch. - Make chapati dough and Sabji of your choice overnight. - Pack fruits in a box night and refrigerate. You can give him some salads like cut carrots, cucumber .. - Keep varieties of chutney pudi and tokku ready always . Initially you will find it difficult . Slowly you will get used to. You will slowly discover the tips and tricks all by yourself .Good luck with cooking. You can refer here for more help.
One more doubt sometimes when I prepare any rotti it becomes hard even after adding hot water to the flour while mixing . In India it wasn’t like tat. How do you make here . Some suggesting to use baking paper and put on tawa but once I tried it got stuck to the paper . So directly I prepare on tat nonstick tawa.
I use Cast iron tawa. Making directly on tawa is much easier I feel. Grease generous amount of oil say 1/2 spoon and pat the rotti on tawa ,make holes on it and add oil .